


Past and Present

by Sophie_The_Shipper



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Everyone is super supporting, F/M, Karen Peralta dies, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Ray/Kevin parents, Roger Peralta is guilty, and knows that Jake is addopted, but doesn't know who are his parents, little jake, maybe Amy does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 04:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16509035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophie_The_Shipper/pseuds/Sophie_The_Shipper
Summary: When something in the present is similar to something in the past, a story between two squad members is uncovered and everyone is super supporting. Because they are a family, right? [Captain Holt/Kevin/Jake]





	Past and Present

**Author's Note:**

> Word Count: 6235  
> Summary: Family has a different meaning for everyone.  
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Brooklyn Nine-Nine or the characters.

"You're taking me off the case?!" An exasperated Detective Jake Peralta yells, slamming the door on his way in the office.

"Please, detective, enter and sit." Raymond Holt tries to calm his detective down, unsuccessfully.

"You're taking me off the case?!" Peralta repeats, waiting for an explanation.

"This case hits close to home, detective," Holt explains, taking off his glasses and placing them carefully on top of the paperwork that he was signing.

"Close to home?" Jake plumps on a chair, finally calming down – but still fuming from being taken off the case.

"Yes." The Captain says, putting his glasses back on and going back to the paperwork in front of him. It takes him a moment, but he realizes his detective hadn't left his office yet. "Peralta. Anything else?"

The detective doesn't even move a muscle. He keeps sitting on the chair with an incorrect posture, causing Raymond Holt to pretend like he wasn't having a hard time not thinking about the young man's back once he got older.

"Jacob?" The young man flinches when he hears that name. "I'm sorry, but my decision hasn't changed. You're not working the case. I handed it to Detective Diaz and Santiago." Jake still doesn't move. Raymond silently sighs. He rises from his chair. "Come with me."

Only then Jake moves and walks behind the old man. They leave the precinct, and Jake has no idea where they're heading until they arrive at the too-familiar neighborhood.

"Turn the car around. Please." The plead was heard by the Captain but he keeps driving in the same direction, no matter how many times the detective begs him to turn around.

"Here." He says, stopping the car. Neither moves from their seat nor leaves the car. Jake blinks, trying to keep the tears inside. He fails.

Raymond Holt notices the single crystalline tear traveling through the young man's cheek, but he still doesn't move. He stares into the house, now for sale. It has been that way for the last three decades. The front of the house was falling apart, the windows were broken, the fence was broken and almost inkless.

But it wasn't that way three decades ago when he was called to that location. It was an open-and-shut case, the husband did it. Without counting on the fact that it wasn't the first time the police was called to that location with denunciations of domestic violence, there was also a witness.

_Arriving in an old car, Detective Raymond Holt immediately finds a uniformed officer to tell him what happened, even though he was already debriefed before his arrival at the scene._

_He still wants to discover as much as he can from the responding officers. Apparently, they had waited for him to talk to the witness. Once they explained the entire situation, he goes to talk to the witness._

_Sitting on the ambulance with paramedics checking up on him, a little child was seen by the trained eye of the detective. The officer told him that the child was seven-years-old, but to Holt, he seemed even younger. He was a short stature child, with curly brown hair and big brown eyes, he noticed when he got closer to the child in question. The blanket he was wrapped in made the child look even smaller._

_"Jacob?" The small child looks to him at the mention of his name. "Can I ask you a few questions?"_

_Jake looks away and doesn't answer, something that the detective understands. It appeared the brown-eyed toddler had seen the whole thing happen in front of his eyes. He was the one that called 911 and explained the situation._

_"Don't want to talk, huh?" He hated to use that kind of words, but in front of kids he felt like they needed to feel safe and understand what was going on._

_He grabs the child, that instantly wraps his legs around his torso and his tiny arms go around the detective's neck. His head sits perfectly on the crook of his neck, and Holt takes him to his car allowing him to play with the lights – something that he thought kids would like._

_But the child wasn't interested in that. "Do you have a badge?" Those were the first words that came out of his mouth. Nodding, Raymond takes his badge and hands it over to the youngster, that immediately passes his hand over it._

_He waits a few moments before trying to get the information from the child. "Can you tell me what happened, Jacob?"_

_Without ever taking his eyes from the badge, and with a trembling lip, Jake explains. "Daddy was hitting mommy again."_

_"Again?" Raymond tries to keep his anger towards the situation to himself, but he knows some of it was already on his usually stoic face._

_The child nods. "Is mommy going to be okay? She wasn't breathing."A single tear falls from the big brown eyes of the never-again innocent child._

_"Your mother is in a better place." He tries to explain to the child that he will never see his mom again, but doing this announcement is the worst part of the job, especially to a child._

_"What about daddy? He's in a better place?" Raymond is speechless. Does the child want that bastard back? "I hope he isn't." He mumbles, softly. Raymond realizes the hate the child has towards his father. As the child keeps looking to the badge, the detective hears his name being called outside. He tries to leave the car, but he feels a hand on his arm. "Don't go." The infant pleads._

_"I will come back." The man feels the nails of the young child leave his arm and goes to the officer that called._

_"Child services can't pick him up now. They asked if any of us can stay with him. Can you?" He whispers, trying not to get those words in the youngster's ears._

_Raymond thinks. His 'husband' – of heart, not legally - and he always spoke about having kids, but the time never came. Especially since the adoption would have to be made by only of them since they couldn't both legally adopt him._

_But Jake had started to make him think a lot more about it. The few minutes he had with him made his heart grow._

_"Yes, I will." He leaves then, returning to the car. Tomorrow he would return and hand in his report. Today, he was taking the child to his house and take care of him._

_Only problem? He didn't have anything for a child in his house. As he almost reached the car, he turned around and then he entered the house, where the victim was with a white sheet covering her. The scene wasn't pretty. There had clearly been a fight in there. With a child inside. Sighing, the detective climbs up the stairs and found the boy's room. Grabbing most things he could, his eyes fell to a small stuffed bear on the floor. He took it and went downstairs once again, leaving the scene._

_When he entered his car once again, he gave the child the bear._

_"Sleepy!" The child exclaimed. He hugged him tightly against his chest, the last reminder of his once happy childhood._

The Captain's eyes focus back to the present, where that child is calling him.

"Captain? Captain!"

His eyes dart to where the voice is coming from. "Yes?"

"Can we just go back? Please?" That plea was heard and followed by the old man that turned his car on and drove. But he didn't drive to the precinct. Instead, he drove to his house.

"What are we doing here?" Jake asked. He hadn't been there for a few years, at least not in this way. Sure, he had gone to the Holt/Cozner household plenty of times over the years. When there was Holt's birthday party, where Kevin had to pretend not to know Jake; when Kevin was in Paris and Jake and Amy were houses sitting for Holt and Cheddar escaped; another time that isn't worth mentioning. But as a child, once again, he hadn't been there for years.

Not since he left to go to the academy. Kevin didn't want him to go, even though the worst to convince was Holt himself. He had seen what it was like to be a police officer so he didn't want his son to go through the same thing. But he still went. And his parents were nothing but proud of him.

Going to that house again was more difficult than Jake actually thought. He could still remember the first day he showed up there.

_With the memory of his mother lying in a pool of her own blood as his father was arrested burning on his brain, seven-year-old Jacob Peralta left the old car in the arms of someone that seemed trustworthy. He knew things were changing, he just didn't know how much._

_He saw a white man approaching them, and the moment the man saw him, he smiled. The two adults kissed, and the child crunched his face. The couple has seen people doing that plenty of times, which was why they had to refrain from public affection in public, but never had they seen a child doing that._

_"That's yucky." The child admitted and laughed. "Mommy and Dad used to do that." And with that, Jake started to cry. It wasn't a soft cry like when you hit your pinky in the corner of a table. It was full on cry, tears streaming faster than a waterfall._

_The two-man didn't know what to do, so Raymond decided to just give him his stuffed bear. The tears kept coming, and they decided to get inside the house._

_While Raymond set the guest room into a child appropriate bedroom, Kevin tried to make the child quiet down. Nothing he did work. Until he noticed a book inside the backpack of things that came from the child's house. Taking the book, he opened it._

_Caillou. Intrigued, Kevin started to read it, even making voices that he discovered to make the toddler giggle – a sound he somehow found endearing. He kept reading until he noticed young Peralta calming down. Once that happened, he noticed his big brown eyes focused on Cozner. Smiling with some discomfort, he finished the book. By then, Jacob was asleep, but Kevin wanted to know how it ended. He might not be the target for those types of books, but he wasn't someone to leave a book in the middle._

_When he turned around to take the kid to his room, he noticed his husband at the door, that just smiled._

_At that moment, Jake woke up slightly, just enough to be able to hear._

_"Maybe we can keep him?" It was a sort of statement in the form of a question. Jake didn't hear the answer._

_The next morning, he woke up in a strange bed, with different things from his normal room. The walls weren't blue, like his. Instead, they were white, like the ones in a hospital. The furniture wasn't covered in pictures and toys. They had nothing on top of it._

_He felt like screaming, but his mind immediately brought back the memory of his mom. On a pool of blood. He can now remember her screaming for help._

_He sees the door open and his first instinct his hide under the covers. It doesn't take Kevin more than a few moments to take the covers from the child's head and sit on the bed._

_"It's okay, dear Jacob. You're safe."_

_"Jacob?" He hears. "Are you okay?"_

_"Oh." He notices he is still outside, the door open waiting for his entrance. "Yeah. It's okay." He says, swallowing the tears that were forming as he steps inside the familiar house._

_His parents follow him to the living room._

"Jacob? Do you know why are you here?" Kevin asks.

"Because of that case, the Captain took me off. It's not fair!" He shouts.

"It's for your own good." Captain Holt explains, once more.

Jake breaths in. "Yeah, I know." He concedes. "It's just..."

"What is it?" Holt asks, feeling like they are getting close to get the child to confess. He remembers all those nights of nightmares he had, all the times the three of them had to share a bed because of said nightmares. He never told them what the nightmares were about.

"Every time I look at the case file, I... only see my mom." He gives that information and plumps into the couch, just like he did earlier in Captain Holt's office.

"Oh!" The couple exclaims.

"So, how do you see her?" Kevin asks.

"She's fighting with my dad again. And then she's dead, and I'm being carried out by a uniformed officer."

Both Kevin and Holt look at each other and open their mouths to speak, but Ray's phone starts to ring.

"Holt."

"Captain? It's just to inform you we arrested someone on the case you gave us? The domestic violence one?"

"And who did you arrest, Santiago?"

At the mention of his fiancee's name, Jake perks up.

"The husband. Jake was right." After hearing what he wanted, Holt hanged up without allowing Amy to say another word.

"You were right. The husband did it."

"Oh!" Jake sounded disappointed. The two-man look at him confused. Jake explains. "It's just... I kind of hoped I was wrong on this one, ya know? I wish it was someone else so that another kid wouldn't need to grow up without their parents." Both adults nod in understanding. "I mean, I was lucky, but he might not be." He smiles.

_"I guess this is a goodbye, huh?" Jake asks._

_"We'll see each other soon, son," Holt informs. "Don't worry. We're right here if you ever need anything."_

_There was a hug between father and son, and Kevin looks with adoration. He smiles, glad that his husband was no longer trying to break their son's fantasy of becoming a police officer like his father._

_Jake hugs him too, without any warning. After the initial shock, Kevin relaxed a bit, but then tensed when he thought of his son running around with a gun and people wanting to shoot him. It was bad enough to be with someone like that, fearing to get that phone call saying he has a funeral to plan. Now, he needs to worry about two?_

_"It's okay, dad." Jake breaks the hug and smiles, his boyish grin that always made Kevin feel better. It didn't work this time, but the father still smiled._

_"Be good. We love you." If anyone looked at them, they would think they were the worst parents ever, since they were both staring at him emotionless. But Jake could see right through them._

_"I love you guys too. Thank you for everything." He says, hugging them._

They were in the precinct, the three of them. Jake was finally ready to tell everyone the truth, and both parents were okay with that. At first, Holt was apprehensive, but he grew to the idea.

Joining the squad on the briefing room, Jake started to speak.

"Thirty years ago, as you all know, I was adopted." Everyone nodded, still not understanding why they were there. "Well, the thing is, I never told anyone who adopted me."

"Who raised you? We will finally know?" Terry asked, rubbing his hands together, with excitement.

"We did," Kevin said, calmy and without any emotions.

"What?" There was a collective surprise.

"Hold on? Sorry, but according to my binder, you don't have any children!" Amy mentions, without bothering to hide the fact that she made a binder on Captain Holt – something that everyone knew about.

"Yeah, that's because Kevin was the one that adopted me. Legally, they couldn't adopt me as a couple. You know, them being gay and such." Jake explained. "That's why my legal name is Jake Cozner Peralta."

"Seriously?" Terry asked Jake, nodded. "Wait, how did you come with that decision? Why not Holt, why Kevin?"

"Work was hard enough without anyone knowing I had a child," Holt explained.

"Every time I went to the precinct I was his husband's nephew. Great game. I won a sticker for good behavior." Then it hits him. "You told her to do that?!" He accused Holt and Kevin since Amy would always give him stickers when he did something good.

The three people smile, as Jake stood there indignant.

_It was dark outside. The tree outside was without any leaves, all on the ground in front of the house. Seven-year-old Jake looks outside, thinking of how much he wants to go outside and jump on the leaves, make them do the crunchy sound. He imagines himself there, jumping as his mother laughs along with him._

_It's a full moon day, and there were stars outside. He remembers staring at the stars with his Nana and his best friend Gina. Nana knew a ton of stories about the stars and she would always tell them about all of them. She could even name the stars, the constellations._

_He suddenly hears a noise downstairs, and he sighs. It became a frequent thing. In a while, the neighbors will call the police that will come, talk to him and he'll lie saying that everything is okay. He perfected the ability to lie about it, even though he had a hard time making people believe anything other than that._

_He keeps staring out on the window, now seeing his mom wincing in pain as she laughs. Her face is a little bruised because she 'fell down the stairs'. Jake would pretend to believe her, and keep jumping off the leaves. Looking at the moon, he just makes a wish._

_"Please make him stop." He pleads. He hears the police outside and knows that he'll now need to breathe a little bit and act like he doesn't know what they're talking about. He was asleep._

_He lied down on his bed, pretending to be asleep when the police officer appears._

_"Hey, little man." The officer gently touches his shoulder, making him open his eyes._

_"What is it?" Jake asks, trying to make his best sleepy voice._

_The officer now believes he slept through the entire argument. He believes that the seven-year-old lying next to him didn't hear the arguments about his father's other woman, didn't hear him call his mom a bad word. Pretend. Something he became very good at._

_He sees the police car leave, and so did his father, because the car has not even left the street, they are at it once again. Jake sighs again and goes back to his window. He can't sleep when they're fighting. He'll have a nightmare._

_And then he hears her shout. It wasn't a 'he punched me' shout. It was 'it hurts too much' shout. He hears her cry over the shout._

_He tiptoed to the stairs, trying to see what was happening. What he saw marked him for life. He saw his mom with a knife pierced in her belly, blood running through her clothes, his father's hand going through his hair knowing he was screwed now. She was couching, loudly._

_Scared, he ran to the phone, knowing he wouldn't be the only one after those shouts. He called the police, and whispered what was happening, not wanting to be next. He couldn't close his eyes without seeing her on the floor._

_The police were there in a matter of minutes, two if the clock was correct. They were right around the corner._

_They entered the house yelling who they were, immediately asking for an ambulance, the same cop from before running up the stairs to pick him up._

_He hears his dad yell._

_"It was an accident! I swear."_

_By then, Jake his on the ground, sitting on the stairs staring at the cop._

_"You need to come with me." The officer tries to get him in his arms, but Jake flinches away from him. He can now hear the sirens outside, he can still hear his dad saying it was an accident. He can no longer hear his mom cough, and that doesn't seem like a good thing._

_He allows to be carried out, and once he reaches the bottom stair, he notices the other officer shake his head while having two fingers against his mom's neck. Jake notices her eyes staring at nothing, there was no life behind them. Her chest isn't moving. Blood doesn't trickle from the knife anymore._

_That doesn't seem good._

_He sees the scene in a flash, being immediately taken outside by the officer. But those images burn in his brain and are the only thing he can think of._

Jake remembers that moment like it was yesterday, the day when everything changed. The day he met his new parents. The day he had to grow up. He looks around the room and notices something. All eyes are on him.

He feels sick, scared too. Just like he was the day he started to feel himself forgetting about his mom. He didn't want that. He wanted to forget her death, not her life. That day was the day his parents – he only calls them like that when he's scared or they are – decide to put photos of Karen Peralta around the house.

He feels a hand on his upper arm, and he turns to the source of that touch. He notices the bling from a ring and immediately notices her. She was right there now. What if he became his own father, and she would become his mother? What if he ended up cheating on her and he killed her? A shiver goes through him, and she notices the way his eyes turn from admiration and love to scare. She frowns, tilting her head.

His eyes are no longer focused on her but in everyone else. They were right if he ever turned into Roger. Right?

He takes a deep breath. "I... Thank you."

Everyone furrows their eyebrows and looks at him curiously.

"Why are you thanking us?" Terry asks, and Jake shrugs.

"Putting up with me?" They all notice the change in his face, the start of a smile forming on his lips.

"Hold on. Gina knew you." Terry realizes.

"So? What about it?"

"How didn't she know about this?" Charles asks, getting to Terry's point.

Jake smiles. "I never needed too. She knew I had a new family but I still spent my days at Nana's and her house. She never went to my house."

_It was a spring day, warm enough to be without a jacket but with a slight breeze in the air that made everyone in the streets of Brooklyn to wear a jacket. Two teenagers are walking, presumably going home after school._

_"I watched Die Hard this weekend." The boy smiles at the thought of his dads' faces watching the movie. They were trying to learn something out of the movie but really didn't. Only that the movie shouldn't be in their house. But their son liked it._

_"You watch that movie every weekend!" The girl complains. "And you won't shut up about it! Please stop."_

_"I want to be a cop!" He admits. She looks him surprised._

_"Because of some stupid movie?!"_

_"First of all, how dare you!" He slaps her arm. "Secondly, not just because of the movie. Remember my book report a lot of years ago, with that book 'The Squad'?" She nods. "It also helped my decision."_

_"So... Cop, huh?" He nods at her question. "Just promise me you won't get shot at, or whatever. Kay? Cause, need my best friend with me." She confesses._

_"Don't worry, Gina. Always here for you. No matter what." His smile gets brighter when they reach the building. "Ladies first." He jokes. As she was entering, he cuts her off. "You ain't a lady." They both laugh._

_"You're not exactly a gentleman, are ya Bu?" There it was, that pet name she gave him when she didn't want to call him Jakey or something like that._

_Both laugh as they enter the elevator, and there was a grunt coming from Gina's._

_"Stop talking about Die Hard girl!" She pleads. He ignores her._

"So, you spent your days with him?" Gina nods at Rosa's question. "You heard him talk about Die Hard all the time then?"

"I complained about Die Hard all the time. And you're lucky. He used to talk way much." She complains as she looks at him.

"You went to see one of the movies with me!"

"Because I thought we were watching a different one."

Holt and Kevin smile slightly at the interaction between the two friends, but then Raymond notices the clock.

"It's time to work." He declared, hearing everyone's groans – except for Amy, that just smiled thinking of all the paperwork she had – as they all got up from the chairs and went to the bullpen.

The day was a normal one until a couple of hours before their shift was over and the night shift arrived to take their place.

"There's been a shooting in a bank. Everyone is needed." Terry informs. "We have to go as well."

"Let's go!" Excitedly, Jake runs to the locker room, to change clothes and put on the vest – just like everyone else.

And as they all left, Captain Holt looked through the door of his office, concerned but trying not to show it. He waited for them to come back to the bullpen, and he told them to be careful, looking longer to Jake that just nodded and smiled, excitedly running to the elevator soon after.

That was the job. But as a parent, it wasn't an easy part of it. Especially when he was staying behind without knowing what was going on with his son.

He decided to enter his office and close the door. (Not only for security and climate control but also for privacy. He needed to be alone with his own thoughts.)

He sat down on his chair, looking to the closed curtains in front of him. He could hear the natural noise of people moving, files being browsed, people chatting on the bullpen. But there was something missing there. That thing missing when the squad left. Those noises that always made him suspect something was being planned, either for a case or just some prank.

_It was the first week in the precinct. Jake was surprised to know that his new Captain was Raymond Holt, the man that raised him. But he did say for Jake to continue to be himself and not focus on the fact that one of his dads was there._

_So, Jake did so. He continued to play pranks and stuff, continued to be childish – normal attitude for Detective Peralta._

_And that was Raymond's first mistake. He didn't want to treat Jake differently because of him being his child, so he ended up doing exactly that, albeit involuntarily._

_Sargeant Jeffords thought it was because Jake was basically a child, and it was something he asked the Captain about. And it was, partially. Jake was a child. His child._

_Raymond was sitting on his desk signing some papers when suddenly he heard... well, nothing. He had been there for a full week now and there wasn't a moment of silence in that precinct. Criminals coming in and out, families picking their members from the NYPD custody, witnesses, Peralta and Santiago's juvenile bet being discussed... things like that._

_Finding that odd, he rose from his chair and opened the door. Once he got outside, no one was there. Only Peralta, just doing some paperwork._

_"What are you doing here?" Holt asked._

_"Oh!, Captain. Just, ya know... paperwork!" He answered, raising the file in his hands._

_"Very well. Where is everyone else?"_

_"Left. Home." He then yawned and buried his head back on the file._

_Sighing, Captain Holt quickly looks around before sitting on the 'perp chair'._

_"You should go home," Holt advises._

_"What? You worried?" He jokes. He puts down the file on the table. "Because you didn't seem worried about me for the last week. Always making me embarrass myself, pretending like I'm not important." His face stopped smiling, was now looking him serious. "Look, I get you don't want people to know. But at least stop acting like that. Thanks." He grabs the file again and waits for him to leave to actually work._

_Resigned, Captain Holt goes back to his office and grabs his coat. Carefully dropping some files in Gina's desk, he glances to his son's desk, where he is reading the file without actually reading. He just looks at it, as if he already knows it by heart. He was always a great puzzler, and he would always make that face when he was searching for that one piece of the puzzle._

_Clearly talking to him wasn't going to work, and not talking to him was making matters worse. What could he do then?_

_"Want to have dinner?" Holt asks._

_"Already ate." He shows him his empty bag of chips._

_"That has no nutritional value whatsoever. Want to eat real food?" He tries again._

_"Why do you care?" Jake stares at him. He really is hungry, he was just playing tough._

_"You are my..." He stops mid-sentence, lowering himself enough to be near his ear. "Son. I care about your wellbeing."_

_"I don't. So, if you don't mind, I have work to do." He goes back to the case, leaving his Captain walking out of the door, defeated._

* * *

_When he entered his house, he didn't even greet his husband. Once he arrived at the kitchen for dinner, he looked at his husband once. Kevin immediately asked what was wrong._

_"Jacob." He simply answers._

_"What's wrong? Is he okay?" Kevin worriedly asks._

_"Physically, he is fine. Psychologically, has not been for years. But that is not the point, Kevin. He is not speaking to me."_

_"That's normal." Kevin then walks away to the dining room, where he is setting up the plates for the meal._

_"Normal? How is it normal?"Raymond asks, indignant._

_Kevin takes a breath before looking back at his husband. "Jacob is learning how to work with you around. For what I heard, you are not making his life any easier. It appears you're doing the opposite, actually."_

_"I don't want people to think I will give him special treatment just because he is my child. He shouldn't expect it either."_

_"He isn't expecting anything. But he is a boy that grew up with us making sure he would have it easy. At least, enough for him to grow up without any concerns. And now, you're doing the opposite of everything he saw you do." He puts his hands on his husband's shoulders, affectionately. "Give him a break."_

_"I did. I invited him for dinner. He refused." Raymond sits on his favorite chair at the dining table and opens the pan to take some food to his plate. Suddenly, the doorbell rang._

_"I'll open it. Serve yourself." Kevin offers and goes to the door. When he opens it, a very energetic person is at the door, shifting is weight._

_"I was offered dinner." He smiles, and Kevin smiles back. "I hope the offer is still on the table."_

_"For you, there's always a place on the table, Jacob." Kevin lets him in, and as Jake puts his jacket on the hanger and walks to the dining room, Kevin goes get a plate for him._

_They eat in silence like they always did. From time to time Jake looks up from his plate, only for a few seconds. He looks at his Captain, and then at Kevin. They are both already looking at him, so he just goes back to his food. It was nice to eat homemade food for a change. He usually got take-out or just ate from the machine in the break room. The only times he had homemade food was whenever he ate with Charles or Amy decided to make a dinner at her house – which wasn't very good._

_Once they were over with dinner, Kevin took the plates away to the kitchen so that they could both talk alone in the dining room. Privately._

_"So, what made you decide to come here?" Holt starts._

_"I... I need help with this case." Jake starts._

_"My help?" Holt asks, surprised._

_"Yes." Jake sighs._

_They both go to another room in the house, starting to work on the case. There was a rule of not bringing work home, but neither cared about it anymore._

_They both stood there for only half an hour, resurfacing to the living room after that time._

_"You're all over already?" Kevin asks, looking at his watch._

_"It was an easy case. I don't think he's here because of the case." Raymond looks at Jake. "Although you have been working on this case for the entire day." He says, suspicious._

_Jake sighs and sits on the couch, defeated. "I don't know how to work with you there." He admits._

_Holt nods, and so does Kevin. "There's only one solution for this," Kevin says._

_"No!" Jake immediately yells, making both men jump a little bit. "I don't want you to leave. I need to find a way to be okay with this. It's just been bothering me lately. I need to ask you this. Are you okay with me being there?"_

_The Captain takes a breath. "Honestly, it has been a challenge. But if you allow me, I'll try to make it less weird."_

That was how they got to this moment. This was how they were able to work together for so long. And because of working for so long together, Captain Raymond Holt could not stand work at that precinct without his white noise machine. He put his glasses down and put his paperwork aside, looking around at his precinct.

Gina was, obviously, on her phone. Hitchcock and Scully... probably napping.

Everyone else was away on that shooting, the one that Holt was completely forgetting to follow. Grabbing his phone, he checked the news. No fatalities, a few injuries but none were cops. More pleased, the captain of the 99th percent continued to work pretending not to be bothered by the fact that, even though there were no victims, his squad hadn't returned yet. And it had been a while.

Suddenly the elevator doors open, and from there five of his detectives emerge, a little tired, but still glad to be back.

Jake walked up to his captain and explained that they would all need to take the rest of the day off, but he had a malicious smile on his face. Allowing it, they all practically ran to the elevator, leaving the bullpen with its uncharacteristic silence, once again.

* * *

Raymond enters his house after a long day of paperwork and of silence and was ready to sleep. He turns the lights on, expecting to find his husband sitting at the table waiting for him. Instead, there was his husband and the rest of his family – minus his biological one.

"What are you all doing here?" The Captain asks.

"Dad." Jake puts himself in front of his captain and father and starts to talk. He was in a black suit, white shirt, and a grey tie. "For the past thirty years you and Kevin took care of me. And, somehow, you never left my side. You were there during my father's trial, my mom's funeral." He takes a deep breath when he says this, and everyone looks at him for a moment waiting for his response. But he just continues. "You were there every step of the way. I know you were afraid when I told you I wanted to be a cop, and I know that Kevin blamed you for it and I'm sorry about that." He looks at his other father and offers him a smile, that the man reciprocated. "I just wanted to thank you for everything you did. So," He shows Holt the room, and the man makes a move to his favorite chair of the house. "We are all having dinner together. There's only one rule. No awkward story from my childhood. Deal?"

Everyone nodded, a few people disappointed, Gina just waiting for Jake to leave the room, and Kevin and Raymond look at each other and smile.

Over the course of thirty years, their little family of two, became three when a little, troubled boy with the biggest smile and softest hair showed up in their life. And now, the world is brighter and their family's bigger because they have their squad. Their family is no longer just three people. It's ten people, all with different backgrounds that somehow found each other.

_"I'd just like to say I am happy to be here with my family. My super weird family with two black dads, and two Latina daughters, and two white sons, and ... Gina. And I don't know what you are. Some strange giant baby? To the Nine-Nine!"_

_Family: To some, the family is only their blood relatives, parents, siblings, grandparents… to others,_ family _has another meaning. It can be close friends, friends that seem like your second parents, friends that are your brothers and sisters, sometimes cousins. And that's when a person gets two families: their biological and the one they chose_.

* * *

**The End**

 

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this story three months ago without any direction. I wrote and wrote, and then stopped. Completely forgot about this. I finally decided to finish it. Hope everyone enjoys this. My biggest story yet (one-shot, of course!)


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